Visualization showing the locations of hundreds of near-Earth asteroids.

Avoiding Armageddon: Researchers narrow down list of potentially hazardous asteroids

June 2, 2023

Keep an eye on the skies. Researchers from CU Boulder and NASA have completed a census of hundreds of large asteroids orbiting near Earth—gauging which ones could come precariously close to our planet over the next thousand years. The researchers identified at least 20 asteroids that scientists may want to...

Julian Hammerl makes adjustments to a metal cube representing a derelict spacecraft inside the ECLIPS facility.

Space tractor beams may not be the stuff of sci-fi for long

June 1, 2023

On Feb. 10, 2009, disaster struck hundreds of miles above the Siberian Peninsula. That evening, a defunct Russian satellite orbiting Earth crashed into a communications satellite called Iridium 33 moving at a speed of thousands of miles per hour. Both spacecraft erupted into a rain of shrapnel, sending more than...

Hanspeter Schaub

Hanspeter Schaub earns CU Boulder’s highest award for teaching and research

May 26, 2023

Hanspeter Schaub has a passion for exploring the unknown—peering into uncharted areas of aerospace to push the boundaries of science and engineering. As a professor and chair of the Ann and H.J. Smead Department of Aerospace Engineering Sciences at CU Boulder, Schaub has made a career at the forefront of...

CIRBE being deployed in orbit.

Successful launch for the CIRBE CubeSat

April 26, 2023

The CIRBE CubeSat is live from space after a successful launch and deployment. CIRBE, the Colorado Inner Radiation Belt Experiment nano satellite, is a joint project of the Laboratory for Atmospheric...

Earth from space

New NASA grant to support quantum sensors in space

March 16, 2023

A multi-university research team, including engineers and physicists from CU Boulder, will build technology and tools to improve measurement of important climate factors by observing atoms in outer space. The new Quantum Pathways Institute is led by the University of Texas at Austin, and scientists from the University of California,...

Scott Palo

Palo elected an AIAA fellow

Feb. 15, 2023

Professor Scott Palo has been elected a fellow of the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics (AIAA). Palo is the Charles Victor Schelke Endowed Professor in the Ann and H.J. Smead Department of Aerospace Engineering Sciences and a former associate dean for research in the College of Engineering and Applied...

Janus renderings

Talking the Janus asteroid mission with SpaceNews.com

Jan. 27, 2023

Dan Scheeres was interviewed by SpaceNews.com on progress and setbacks with the Janus asteroid probe mission. Scheeres, a distinguished professor in the Ann and H.J. Smead Department of Aerospace Engineering Sciences, is the the principal investigator for the project, which was planned to launch two probes on asteroid rendezvous missions...

Space Command Logo

CU Boulder joins academic partnership with U.S. Space Command

Jan. 11, 2023

The University of Colorado Boulder has been selected as a United States Space Command Academic Engagement Enterprise member. The new national program is designed to expand collaboration and academic exchanges between universities and U.S. Space Command. “They’re engaging with top universities in the country to have two-way communication; how Space...

Lakshmi Kantha

Kantha interviewed by NBC News on hurricane measurements

Oct. 3, 2022

Lakshmi Kantha was interviewed by NBC News for a new piece on the category system used to measure hurricanes. Kantha, a professor emeritus in the Ann and H.J. Smead Department of Aerospace Engineering Sciences, is an expert in ocean-atmosphere interactions and their implications to long term weather and climate. The...

Jay McMahon

McMahon interviewed for national story on DART

Sept. 27, 2022

Associate Professor Jay McMahon was featured in an article on NASA's DART mission, which successfully crashed into the asteroid Dimorphos yesterday. The piece, in the Christian Science Monitor, was written ahead of the collision. It outlines goals of the mission as an experiment for future planetary defense from asteroids. McMahon,...

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